A journal of my adventures through each game as I attempt to complete the Pokédex.

Friday, June 14, 2013

FireRed update 6/14

South of the entrance to the Rock Tunnel, only accessible by surfing, stands the Power Plant, a rundown abandoned building that has become the home for most of the region's electric pokemon. I got there by riding on Poliwrath and had Dugtrio lead the team when we entered. As I made my way toward the back of the power plant where Zapdos roosts, I caught an Electrode who was pretending to be an item on the ground (I don't see how this could fool anyone in real life or in the TV show), and both Magnemite and Magneton. I'm not sure how long the battle took but it took me 3 attempts to successfully catch Zapdos (the first time I accidentally selected my Master ball instead of an ultra ball and the second time my team knocked Zapdos out). I had it down to the tiniest sliver of health and was putting him to sleep over and over but he wouldn't stay in a ball. I went through so many Ultra and Great balls and it took so long that I actually fell asleep (O.O). Finally I just paralyzed him so I could quit using sleep powder and kept changing between great balls and ultra balls. Eventually an ultra ball finally stuck.

While I was still at the power plant, I did some grinding with my Nidoking and Dugtrio. Then I left to play around with the vs. seeker in some of the later routes. I worked until all of my pokemon were at least level 60 and made my way to Victory Road.

Victory Road was just like I remembered it. I made my way through the path pushing boulders to activate switches and catching a Pokemon or two. I battled all of the trainers I could find for that last bit of experience before making it to Indigo Plateau.

Before going in, I stocked up on revives, full heals and hyper potions. My team consisted of Charizard, Raichu, Nidoking, Gloom (holding out for a Sun Stone), Poliwrath and Kadabra (haven't traded with LeafGreen yet). For Lorelei I used Raichu and Charizard. For Bruno I used Poliwrath and Kadabra. For Agatha I used Kadabra and Nidoking. Against Lance I used Poliwrath and Raichu. Before moving on I fully healed everyone. Against my Rival, I used all 6. Only one of mine fainted (Nidoking because I tried to outmatch his Alakazam with Megahorn but it didn't get him in one hit). When I finally defeated my rival's last pokemon, my team and I were entered into the hall of fame.

The first thing I did after earning my champion status (and having my Pokédex upgraded by Professor Oak) was race back over to One Island to talk to Celio. He switched my tri-pass for a rainbow pass (a rainbow? Really? Maybe I wasn't imagining things during my last visit with Celio and Bill) and asked me to go collect some gems. Then I went to Four Island to finally start breeding for eggs! I started with Ditto and Eevee since I need all of his evolutions. I'm currently working on breeding some extra Kabuto so I have a Kabuto and Kabutops in both games. Next I will probably breed Hitmonlee for a few eggs.

As I've been walking around waiting for the daycare man to tell me I have an egg and waiting for eggs to hatch, I've managed to catch a few Johto Pokemon. I didn't want to until I completed the Kanto dex, but I ran into them by accident. I have Slugma, Sentret, Pinub and Delibird so far.

And this is where the update to my update starts (I had it saved as a draft but I have accomplished a lot since then). I have to say, Four Island has to be my least favorite breeding location of any game. There is no long straight path to continuously run up and down, and there are no adjacent routes to run into to make the location "refresh". The old man never moves unless I go inside so I have to actually talk to him to see if there is an egg yet. And he always starts with "Ah, it's you!", so for a fraction of a second I get excited that there is an egg and then he goes on about my pokemon doing fine and not getting along. I should have just started progressing in LeafGreen to trade Dittos when I get far enough. It takes so much less time when breeding with a traded pokemon (took no time at all to get eggs from Blastoise and Venusaur since they both have different ID numbers).I have managed to collect lots of eggs in the last couple of days though: 3 Eevee, 3 Tyrogue, 3 Kabuto, 1 Pichu, 1 Igglybuff, 1 Cleffa, 2 Bulbasaur, 2 Squirtle, 2 Elekid and a Smoochum. I'm still in need of 3 Charmander. The 3 Eevees were each evolved with a stone, 1 Tyrogue will become Hitmonchan and one will become Hitmontop, 2 Kabuto are going to be traded to LeafGreen for 2 Omanyte, 1 of each of the starters will be evolved into their second stage and 1 Elekid will be traded to LeafGreen for a Magby. The rest will stay as babies for my pokedex collection.

While I was waiting for some of the longer gestation periods, I continued on with the island arc and tracked down the Sapphire. Right as I was about to pick it up, this sneaky low life comes in and snatches it and tells me he is going to sell it to Team Rocket. I thought I brought their organization down! Apparently news doesn't travel very fast between the islands and the main land. At least the sneak thief was kind enough to tell me the second password to get into the rocket warehouse on Five Island. The warehouse was consistent with the other Rocket hideouts. It came complete with rotating/zooming floor tiles. It took me a minute to figure out how to make it to the Rocket Admin, but I eventually made my way back to him. I has surprised to see that these island Rockets also use Dark Pokémon. The Admin shouted about how a kid should stay out of grownup matters and vowed to bring team rocket back (maybe he's the same guy in Gold and Silver?) and then ran off and I faced the thief. After a battle he complained about the Sapphire being worthless since he couldn't sell it and handed it over. I returned to One Island and gave the Sapphire to Celio so he could complete his big machine that allowed trading with trainers from Hoenn.

Behold the magic of Pokémon Box:

Before After

Once trading was possible with Ruby and Sapphire, transferring to and from Pokemon Box was also possible. So I uploaded my completed Hoenn Dex from Sapphire to Pokemon Box and then transferred it to FireRed. since then a couple more eggs hatched. So

Current PokéDex Completion: Kanto- Seen 146, Own 138 -- National- Seen 314, Own 301

The only Pokemon I need for the Kanto Dex are Mewtwo and some of the LeefGreen exclusives. Time to go grab Mewtwo and then start Playing Leaf Green!